■ Computer
Dell hungry for Asian market
Dell Inc, the world's largest PC maker, said it aims to double its share of the Asia-Pacific computer and server market as it increases sales in the region. "Asia Pacific will continue to be a vehicle of growth for Dell for a long time," the company's president and chief executive Kevin Rollins told reporters in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. "What I would hope is Dell's share of the Asia-Pacific market will go from about 10 percent today and grow over time to maybe 20 percent," he said, declining to give a timeframe for achieving the target. The US is Dell's largest market, while the Asia-Pacific and Japan account for 11 percent of its revenue. The company this week announced plans to open a second factory in China in the first quarter of next year. Dell's plants in Malaysia, its manufacturing base for Asia outside Japan and China and producer of more than 95 percent of the company's notebook computers sold in the US, are increasing output at 30 percent a year.
■ Fuel
China imposes rationing
Surging demand for fuel in China's southern province of Guangdong, an export-oriented manufacturing center, has led to severe shortages of gasoline and diesel, prompting officials to impose rationing, news reports said yesterday. Many filling stations in the Guangdong provincial capital of Guangzhou were limiting each car or truck to adding 50 yuan (US$6) worth of fuel, newspapers said. They said some stations were completely sold out and cheaper types of fuel weren't available anywhere. Officials blamed the shortages on surging demand, plus the reluctance of Chinese refineries to raise output at a time when soaring world crude oil prices have cut into profits, according to the reports. There was no immediate indication that the shortages were hurting businesses in Guangdong.
■ Oil industry
Countries mull cooperation
Venezuela's state oil company plans to process Ecuadorean crude at its refineries to help supply Ecuador's domestic demand, an official said. "The plan we are discussing with Ecuador is to place its crude in our refining system ... We can process [Ecuador's] oil to meet its domestic requirements," Rafael Ramirez, president of state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA, said on Thursday. He said the company could also sell products produced from Ecuadorean crude in the international market. Oil is Ecuador's main export product, but the country has no oil refineries.
■ Automakers
Honda praises India
Despite unrest at a Honda factory near New Delhi, the chief of Honda Motor says India carries fewer risks than China due to its relative political transparency and lack of anti-Japanese sentiment. In an interview with Japanese media, Honda Motor president Takeo Fukui said that China, for all of its economic growth, was just beginning to come of age as a hub to produce cars for export. Late last month, at least 130 people were injured as police clashed with striking workers at a Honda group motorcycle factory in Gurgaon near the Indian capital to protest the sacking of employees. "I acknowledge that India often has strikes but the strike has calmed down and the environment for talks with the union is almost ready," Fukui said, as quoted by yesterday's Tokyo Shimbun daily. He doubted the fallout would last long.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)